Episode Transcript
Rhett: Welcome back to the Failure Files on Pipeline Things. In this episode, we go to the leading, or one of the leading causes, of pipeline failures in the United States, and that's third -party damage. So, you know, as we take a look at Type A sleeves, Macondo and Boeing, you often had clear signs or things that were missed or maybe even ignored in those failures. I think the challenge when we take a look at third-party damage for the first time on pipeline things, is this almost this feeling of what more can you do and what does an effective 811 campaign look like? Many stories in this episode, a bit sobering, but it is a great episode to really reflect on what we as integrity engineers work to prevent.
- intro -
Rhett: All right, on this episode of Pipeline Things, we continue our failure series. And this the threat we're going to talk about today is probably long overdue.
Chris: Yeah.
Rhett: But it's it's a tough one to talk about because it's third-party damage. And I think the reason it's tough is from an integrity management perspective, we like to acquire data to prevent failures, right? When you think about third party damage, it sometimes it doesn't feel preventable in the same sense. I'm not saying it's not preventable, but it doesn't feel preventable in the same sense
Chris: Because it’s time-independent, you can’t correlate it, it’s hard to engineer.
Rhett: And you're dealing with other people that are outside of your control things that you can't potentially control, but I will say this much Chris and I want to prep the audience This might be one of my favorite episodes to have presented. I felt like it was it was both sobering but also like just kind of Wow factor shocking. So we're gonna cover four separate failures here. So buckle up, but before we do I want to give you guys some statistics I learned some things here first off is there is an outfit called the common ground alliance. And they have a tool called the damage incident reporting tool or, dirt for short, I mean how clever is that? damage incident reporting.
Chris: So they're like dirt merchants.
Rhett: For the US and Canada different type but similar and, they have this great website dashboard that you can go and filter things. So I'm just going to give you some statistics. In 2023, there were 167,000 reported damages across the United States and Canada. That's for all lines, right? So telecommunications, everything, but what I want to brace you for.
Chris: For both US and Canada.
Rhett: Yes. In 2022, there are 168,000. And in 2021, there's 160,000. So unfortunately, we're not getting any better. Like when you look at historical statistics for third party damage, unfortunately, we're not improving. The leading utility to be struck is, do you want to guess? Telecommunication.
Chris: Telecommunication. Because I might have done that before.
Rhett: With that, that's believable.
Chris: Those lines are pretty thin and they're at the surface. They're not very deep.
Rhett: Followed by, yours wouldn't count though 'cause it runs up to your house probably, followed by natural gas.
Chris: [inaudible]
Rhett: Absolutely. Considering all utilities, fun facts for the audience, considering all utilities, landscaping work was the most frequently associated with the top root cause, which is not calling 8 -1 -1. I was waiting for it to drop, what are you there?
Chris: Yeah, that's also probably telecom incidents because they don’t bury those very well.
Rhett: Yep. So again, filtered by natural gas filtered by natural gas. So if we look at just natural gas incidents and look at the root causes, 20 % are attributed to a locating issue. So late missing or incorrect locates. Okay. So you called 811 and they didn't get out there within 48 hours.
Chris: They took too long.
Rhett: Or they didn't locate it at all or they mislocated it.
Chris: Yeah, they missed the line.
Rhett: 30 %, one third of all incidents, no locate requests. And we're going to see that as a common theme in today's
Chris: So about a third.
Rhett: Yep. And 35 % were attributed to excavator. So and half of these the excavator failed to maintain correct distance even after locating the pipeline. I mean, so it was really shocking. Again, I encourage the audience go take a look at the DIRT tool online, but let's jump into the first failure. So I'm going to have to take you back and I did these failures in order of chronological significance. So the first failure is November 4th in 2003, and it's the Magellan pipeline in Brandon, Minnesota. So what's interesting about this is the Brandon and Brandon Minisipin, Brandon Minnesota, Magellan operates a six inch line that's hit by a farmer operating a chisel plow, right? And this pipeline reports refined products. So the guy hits the pipeline, he immediately jumps out of place and he goes to call 911. Amazingly, the pipeline doesn't explode. And in fact, it only releases about 24 gallons of unleaded gasoline into the soil, right? But there are-
Chris: four gallons or 24 barrels?
Rhett: 24 barrels. Sorry, thank you.
Chris: That’s a big difference.
Rhett: It is, but it's still in the consequence of spills. It's it's
Chris: Small.
Rhett: Right, especially that there was no ignition or anything like that. Right. But this this one incident sets the stage for the remainder of them in terms of what happened. So first off, the guy who's digging doesn't receive, it doesn't call 8 -1-1 and the operator has no prior notice of excavating activity. What's really crazy about this is Magellan is aware that the pipeline had low depth of cover. They were aware that it was nine inches in some spots from field measurements and six weeks prior to the incident they had conversations with the tenant farmer. So six weeks before he strikes the pipeline, They're talking to the farmer about, "Hey, we have low depth of cover in these areas." In follow -up interviews, the farmer says he was unaware that this specific line had low depth of cover, but he was aware that they were doing depth of cover projects in other locations adjacent.
Chris: He also might have wondered, "Well, how low is low?" "Well, I won't till that deep. We're okay.
Rhett: Right, I mean, that's fair, but I think it's shocking to me, because again, this isn't the only time we're going to see this, where the pipeline operator actually had contact with the person that's responsible for the incident at what I'm going to call some reasonable time in the future. We're not talking about decades, maybe years, but not even like more than five years in most cases, right. And so again, what in a very rare, rare case, in this particular case, the tenant, the landowner and Magellan actually agreed that there had been a communication breakdown. And they all kind of like shook hands and made nice, which is not typically how this ends, probably because there was no incidents, the farmer agreed to start sending prior notification, and communicate all of his these plan, plow activities, um, Magellan, uh, accepted and they actually entered into a consent degree and you might say, Whoa, where the hell does a consent degree come into this? Because Magellan had acquired this line from Williams nearly eight years earlier. They were actually aware of low depth of cover and were in the process of fixing it, but the consent degree comes in because it had been eight years and they hadn't rectified the low depth of cover. So low-depth of cover unaware operator Pipeline strike number one. I'm gonna take you to pipeline strike number two.
Chris: Hope we don't strike out.
Rhett: That was clever kind of maybe, July 5th 2010 the Dixie pipeline company in Thompson, Georgia, right this one again is another one that just blew my mind reading it And all of these audience all of these are available on PHMSA’s website The incident occurs on July 5th 2010 at 10:40 a .m. On a 20-acre pond So the the land has a 20 -acre pond and two mobile homes and a storage owner a storage facility,
Chris: I hope this doesn't have anything to do with July 4th celebrations.
Rhett: Nope. No, it doesn't.
Chris: No hangovers involved?
Rhett: No, doesn't but the property owner Paul McCorkle struck the 8 inch Propane line with his bulldozer while grating dirt along the edge of the road, right? The strike punctures the pipe and Mr. McCorkle isn't injured, is injured but he's not killed. He takes off running, the escaping gas forms a vapor cloud which hovers over the pond in the lower lying areas. After he flees the scene to go report the incident from a nearby home. Unfortunately, his son, who's living on the property in one of the mobile homes, walks outside, calls 911 and he's standing outside when the gas cloud ignites and his son is killed in the incident, right? It destroyed obviously both mobile homes and killed a son. So this is one of the travesties we have, which is a lot of times you do have, you have fatalities that result when third party damage. So a lot of times we might get away, like we talked about other failures where you don't have fatalities. I think I feel like it's rare in the case of third party damage to walk away and not have a fatality. The investigation determined that Mr. McCorkle did not call 811, which was required by Georgia State law. And this is where it gets even crazier, right? So according to Dixie Pipeline Records, a Dixie representative had met with Mr. McCorkle five years earlier because he was doing work on their right-of-way. So he was clearing his ground above their right-of-way. They meet with him, they identified it from an aerial patrol. They saw the excavating equipment above the right-of-way. They meet with him and the representative, they hit, I didn't realize this, the pipeline operators and they do this. They have detailed records of all this. They have records of the whole conversation and the person stresses the importance of calling 811 and making a one call and Mr. McCorkle says I'm gonna do this don't worry well five years later he either didn't do it or didn't take the message seriously and one more surprising fact Mr. McCorkle was a first-term county commissioner so he was a government official right I mean like this is where I get like, holy cow, it's a government official, and I don't know why that makes it more surprising to me, but it does, right? It's not like you're just your average Joe operating a backhoe, right? So again, I think, you know, you see this pattern of pipeline operator, contacts individual, individual digs, individual strikes pipeline, because they made no attempt, right?
Chris: Yeah, they forgot.
Rhett: And unfortunately, this one has tragic consequences. I mean, the guy's son died. I'm sure I, I genuinely feel for this gentleman that he has to live with that, um, on his conscience moving forward. So.
Chris: And it's a significant incident, right? I mean, it was about 150 yards away from where the line was struck. I mean, so pretty significant incident.
Rhett: Yes. Um, that, that, that, I'm glad you brought that up. What Chris is referring to is the gentleman that was killed 250 feet yards away 450 feet away when it ignited that is worthwhile to think about it wasn't like he was right next to the pipeline when it happened, so.
Chris: Just just the threat of it, you know, because the cloud of the propane I mean, it's just a different a different type of damage they should try to mitigate unfortunate next one.
Rhett: Yep. The next one up. So, this one is gonna again be Magellan pipeline in Lawrence, Kansas and we are in October 6, 2011, right? This is again another super scary one. Um, so they Magellan operates a 10 inch diesel fuel line, and it's punctured by the tooth of a front-end loader that's owned and operated by R .D. Johnson excavating, right? So, R .D. Johnson is on the side of the property of Mike Garber enterprises, and they're building a pond for this guy. I don't think that's uncommon either. What's particularly scary about this one, right? So, he's digging and boom, he punctures it is when they dug up the pipeline, they found that it had been struck multiple times upstream, right? And I've even got a photo here, right? So if you take a look at the photo, I don't know if Miss Producer can put this online, but look how many times that he had struck the pipeline upstream there, right? It's like all up and down the pipeline. Again, the total cost to fix this was seven hundred thousand six hundred and sixty-seven thousand dollars and two thousand eleven dollars.
Chris: It almost makes you want to think about the rhetoric there a little bit, right? It's like this is an excavating company. So they should be pros at this, right? And again, this is not fact and I'm being a little bit facetious here, but you could almost imagine being like, oh, no, I've been here before and you know, you just nudge the pipe a little bit You know where your boundary is and you move over a little bit
Rhett: Statistics are on our side, Chris Do you think the excavating company where they're digging a pond. Do you think that they called 811?
Chris: Of course they did because they're pros.
Rhett: Unfortunately, the answer is they did not call 811.
Chris: They didn't need to because they had already struct the line so they knew where it was. No? Okay.
Rhett: Right. So it's a travesty again. So here's the sad part. So two failures. Number one, the pipeline was marked. Like, and I even put pictures of where pipeline markers were on the road.
Chris: Oh, so that's something else to say, right? So, it's not that 8 -1 -1 came out and marked the lines, but rather there are pipeline right away markers that were visible and clear. And you can create a line of sight from what the trajectory of the line is, and you generally can say, "Hey, I need to stay away from the center line."
Rhett: Yep. The employee that did this had been working for two years and said he didn't notice the markers, right? But regardless, his employer, R .D. Johnson, did not provide notice to excavate or issue a one-call. Both the company, the digging company, and the owner were included in Magellan's Pubness Awareness Campaign. So the owner had been mayoraled a brochure in 2007, four years earlier, and the excavator company had previously identified the excavator in the right-of-way. So, Magellan had tagged this route of this particular excavator as being in their right of way before and they had notified the company in September 2010, right? So again, we see I feel like from an operator perspective. I have to read and I'm like, what else can the operator have done here? Like it feels like it's it's it's it's a question I keep coming back to.
Chris: We'll save questions for later. Go keep going story time with Rhett continues.
Rhett: In this last one. So this last one to the audience, I really want to encourage you.
There's a Miss Producer will put a link. There is a really well done. It's about a 15-minute video that was actually made on this failure. Very, very well done. And it's an emotional video. It's one that really brings home the reality of the people that are involved. So, this is December 5th, 2017. And this this is a Kinder Morgan line in Dixon, Illinois. So, on December 5th, there are two owners and two employees of M&R farms that are installing drainage tiles on a property that they had leased, right? So for the audiences out there, you don't want a drainage tile is think a French drain. So basically when they need to get like water away from a location, what they do is they take a trench and then in that trench, they place what looks like a French drain, which is nothing more than corrugated pipe that has holes in it. The water can seep in but the soil doesn't and then it runs to a creek or somewhere else and it lets them keep that particular part of the place where they're trying to farm dry. So, one of the owners is on a 500-horsepower track, horsepower tractor pulling a tiling plow, right? He got through about 400 feet of the installation and then the tilling plow comes lodged on an object, but he doesn'tnknow what he's hit, right? So according and you watching the video, they say, “Hey, this wasn't uncommon. You know, we thought we hit a boulder or something like that.” So, what he does is the other M&R personnel hooks up a second tractor to the front of the tiling tractor.
Chris: Pull me out, buddy.
Rhett: Pull me out.
Chris: Pull me out. Have you ever pulled anybody out?
Rhett: He said that. He said, he says in the video that the tractor tires, the, the treads are spinning out on the ground. And of course, because they had hooked a pipeline and they weren't aware of it.
Chris: And it's an unfortunate situation. If you've ever pulled anybody out, you know what your mentality is when you're the guy towing? I got this. Yeah, like, I'm gonna get you out. And that's the mentality, right?
Rhett: And when you watch video, these were experienced farmers like these were not these were not your average Joe's. These were two guys who own the company. They were they they were not like hired hands fresh out of high school or something. These were guys with families. These were guys that were experienced. But unfortunately, the story doesn't end well, right? So what happens is they had hooked the pipeline, the pipeline ruptures. The guy in the tractor feeding the plow with tile, he's launched out of the tractor, which is the only thing that saves his life. He takes off running and he manages to escape. The employee on the front-backhoe also got off and ran, but he’s burned over 60% of his body, and in the video you actually do get a chance to meet him. And then the other two gentlemen are both killed that are standing next to it. So, two people are killed, and one is severely injured, the fourth is ejected and gets away with minor injuries. I do want to take a sidebar moment here, which is the report mentions that the automated valves closed immediately. So like PHMSA sidebars here to stress the importance of remote operated valves. It still takes 51 minutes for the line to blow down, but I want to read to you what came out of the PHMSA report 'cause it struck me because when we go to these meetings, Chris, automated valves are still a hot topic, right? It says “The automated valves helped mitigate the intensity of the fire, allowed first responders to secure the area and facilitated removal of the bodies.” So again, I think we see PHMSA's position on AR valves even here. So, all right, M &R Farms, let's go back to it. Here's, I think, where the sad part gets. M &R Farms had contacted the landowner before to discuss additional tiling. The landowner claims he remembers discussing the one-call program with them and M &R. I told you they were experienced farmers they had a history of obtaining one-call tickets prior to digging Records showed they had made 18 notifications in 2016 and 8 in 2017. The surviving owner had notifications that they had they showed PHMSA of one-call tickets. A review of Kinder Morgan's damage prevention program showed that 10 mailings were sent to them between 2011 and 2016. They had records of two phone calls between Kinder Morgan and M &R farms in 2012 and 2014. And there were 10 additional records or contact with M &R and representatives of Kinder Morgan. Chris, that's a ton of contact. Like I look at it and again, I ask, there were line markers were on the pipeline right away. Now we might argue they were 1,800 feet away, which is probably further than you could maybe see by line of sight. So, I'll go to my next cause. Pipeline was buried at a depth in, like there were no issues with shallow depth of cover here. It was buried below what would be required for current regulatory requirements, but the tiling work took a depth of four feet was occurring at a depth of four feet when it struck the pipeline. To me, that's just like shocking. And I don't think anything captures it better than the end of the PHMSA report. I'm going to read it before we go to break. Despite M &R farms' familiarity with excavation notices and their receipt of public awareness documentation, including excavation safety information provided by Kinder Morgan, no excavation notice was provided for this tiling work. It is possible that this incident might've been prevented if such a notice was provided. We'll get back from the break. We're gonna discuss third party damage. Thank you.
- Break -
Rhett: All right, welcome back as we talk about lessons learned and actions on the episode for third-party damage on the failure files, so just warning to the audience Chris is gonna struggle with this because what he wants is go find it with ILI prevent it and Third-party damage doesn't roll that way.
Chris: It’s time independent bro. It doesn't work that way.
Rhett: I know um, but it still doesn't mean that we can't, you know, do something about it. So here's, here's, here's a tack I want to take, right? So, I already mentioned the Common Ground Alliance before, right? This, this organization is funded by more than 70 top tier member companies, including more than 250 corporate members and 1,800 individual participants, right? So corporate sponsors include Kinder Morgan, TC Energy, PHMSA, so on and so forth, right?
Chris: There's a lot.
Rhett: And they work to promote the messaging. Um, I think one key takeaway from this to everybody that's listening and you're either gonna, you probably, most of the audience might do what you did, which is roll their eyes when I say this.
Chris: Oh I didn’t roll my eyes. I think this is very important.
Rhett: No, you do. I think this is very, um, I think 811 is important to us. In, in other words, here's the question I'll say.
Chris: State your question.
Rhett: Chris, how often do you call 811 when you're working in your yard?
Chris: I call on every single time it matters.
Rhett: What is every single time? Wait hold on stop, including your contractors that you hire to work in. So I know, and the audience knows that you dug up half of your backyard in search of a leaking pool pipe from a tree that was struck. Did you call 811 before you dug up that 100 feet of pipe in your backyard?
Chris: I did call 811 before I dug that time.
Rhett: You did?
Chris: yeah, it was a couple years before but I didn't call 811 before I dug the pipe. So, I know exactly where all the lines run in my backyard.
Rhett: You replaced any fencing?
Chris: I have not but when I put my fence up I did call 811 because I knew I was digging like I was digging with one of those augers that we can do the fence.
Rhett: Let me ask you a question. When you hear that family is gonna be doing work. So I’ll give you really good. My dad-
Chris: I was gonna ask you that.
Rhett: I know darngood, well, my dad took up half his backyard to install a sprinkler system in Waller County. And I am Montgomery County, not Waller County, Montgomery County. And I'm a hundred percent certain he did not call 811 before he did.
Chris: Did you get on him about that?
Rhett: You know, no, I didn't because it was probably nearly a decade ago. And to be honest, I this look, I hope this episode kind of made an impact on me because I think what I've discovered is, you know, we look again, I want to rephrase it this way. If we, as pipeline integrity professionals ,do not call 811 every time, not when under the guise of your judgment, it matters.
Chris: I am calibrated.
Rhett: How do you expect the public to?
Chris: I am calibrated to data integration, and I integrated data.
Rhett: Look, the average public does not understand pipelines. That's the truth. Or they're instructive- So, look, I got another example I wanna give you here. And I'm gonna give a shout out to somebody that I know is a listener. Don't know how much he listens, but he has reached out to us before. And we'll tag him in the episode, which is Roland Palmer Jones.
Chris: This will be after minute 20. So, I don't know if they'll still be listening.
Rhett: Its cool, it is after minute 20. Roland, hope you're still with us. I actually, when I was preparing this episode, remember the LinkedIn post that Roland had done nearly seven months ago. And Roland talked about his 80-year-old father was doing work on some land he had purchased to dig and knew there was a pipeline. And that's, that's the critical thing. Knew there was a pipeline crossing it and reached out to his son Roland to say, should I ask about, “should I get an 811 call,” the equivalent in England about this, you know, this thing. And he gives us some great, great quotes here that I think are that are relevant. He says, “the contractor thinks it'll just be a waste of my time to contact the pipeline operator. I assume that the pipeline runs straight between the marker post at the field boundaries. I've hired a nifty trenching machine, it'll be much quicker than a backhoe, Um, do I have to hand excavate to find the top of the pipe? I'm a bit old for that. And it'll take ages,” like I love in this post that Roland did. And I'm sitting here thinking like Roland is now like the, the, the, he's one of the VPs at Rosen. And I'm like.
Chris: COO now.
Rhett: Yeah. So, this guy's talking about his struggles, getting his father to understand it.
Chris: You know, it'd have been clever as if you would have told us that if you wanted to bring his dog out, because his dog likes to dig holes, maybe his dog could have helped. That would have been really clever. That would have been one of his experiences. Real lives, real pipelines is the tagline. Oh no, real lives, real consequences.
Rhett: So again, I think Roland, I want to say thanks for sharing. I do think what is, and that's my heart behind this message, Chris, is I think it's incumbent upon us as pipeline professionals when we know that our friends, our family, people that we know are doing work, it’s our job to promote that message to some extent. We might not think about it that way, but it is.
Chris: It's kind of like you have to have the talk with your friends, right? It's kind of like, oh, it's like your buddy calls you and he's like, “yeah, I'm gonna put this brand new fence in,” and you're like, “hey dude, like I didn't want to do it in front of all the guys, but I need you to call 811. Like what, what is that?” And then you gotta have that moment to educate him about what 811 is, right? Or they buy some some new machinery.
Rhett: You gotta be the uncool guy.
Chris: And you gotta have the talk with them and be like, "Hey, let me explain some things to you."
Rhett: Yep. So, you know, and again, I did, like I remember most recently, whenever we put in, when we put in the generator, I had to do a pretty sizable gas line running for my meter across the back. And I remember specifically asking those guys, did you call 811, right? And we actually delayed the project because they forgot to call it on Friday. And so they called it out. They didn't.
Chris: I'm curious when you got it because you likely use somebody who gave you a proposal.
Rhett: I did. Yeah.
Chris: When you got a proposal, say that was 811 in their timeline, that would be interesting. Cause that might be where it's at, right? If, if, if we start requiring our contractors to include 811 in their timeline and as it's kind of like a procurement requirement, that might be interesting.
Rhett: And I know a lot of times, um, um, again, I've seen a lot of work done in and around my neighborhood sprinkler that contractors, people that do that. It's just, man, I think those guys get in a habit of not calling it. And this is where I say, I do think that the lesson falls to us, Chris, is we should stop our contractors. Like when you have people that you're hiring to do irrigation work, if they're digging, you should stop them. And let me make it real for you again, we're talking about natural gas pipelines, right, which can have the likelihood of creating an explosion and loss of life. But in many cases, it doesn't have to be that as well, right? So, I read an article the other day about a homeowner in Houston, who was installing a fence in his backyard, and the fencing contractor hit a bundle of fiber optics. And just so the audience understands when that happens on your property, whether as you or the contractor, you're responsible. And in this case, the contractor left him with a six -figure bill, over $100 ,000 for the repair of the telecommunication lines that they hit. You can imagine they dropped an auger and the auger just wrapped up the hole.
Chris: But what's interesting is, see, that message seems to be effective.
Rhett: The cost message?
Chris: Yeah, like that message of, hey, Houston, putting in a fence, hit a fiber optic, 100 grand to be careful. It's like, well, that's effective. Right. Like I got our 811 mailing late last year.
Rhett: How many of them do you get, by the way?
Chris: I would say because I tell you what, I live 850 feet from three very large pipelines and in a decade, I've gotten one mailer. I live actually, I'd I'd have to count a little bit. Give me a second. 'Cause you know I have the arroyo in the back of my yard. I would say it's probably-
Rhett: That's Spanish for river.
Chris: It's probably a quarter mile away from the house, I would say. It's probably about
a quarter mile from the house along the arroyo in the back. And I say I probably
get one about once every two years. Ballpark?
Rhett: Like more frequent than I do.
Chris: Yeah.
Rhett: Is it just one operator in that right away?
Chris: It's one operator.
Rhett: Well then the operator's a good.
Chris: Yeah. So, about every two years, I'll get one. But, um, what I would say is it's, you know, some people question is, is mail really an effective way to communicate? You know, cause that's one of the things I thought about, right? When you were like on the one in Lawrence, it was like, you know, with four years prior, he had received the mailing. I was like, you know what happens for a farmer in four years? A lot of things happen in four years. And so for me, it just, it begs the question and we, our podcast is not to bring in marketing subjects and all that fun stuff, but rather just I think we could have probably an equal amount of impact on our community if you know if you see something you say something like “Hey don't forget to do 811. Hey, don't get a
hundred thousand dollars bill.”
Rhett: Probably more effective than the mailers to be honest.
Chris: Like for us, I mean in the urban environment we're a little bit more stubborn because we're like eh I know where they are or eh it'll just be a telecommunication line.
Rhett: Walk across to your neighbor's house when you see their contract are digging and they haven't called 811 and stop them.
Chris: Did you call 811?
Rhett: Yeah. Um, but I, you know, so I think that brings up a challenge because I actually see it's interesting. Yes, I don't think mailers are necessarily effective, but I think it brings up a challenge that we have in pipelines. It's kind of like a catch 22. We actually-
Chris: Don’t say it. uh oh.
Rhett: Don't want people to know the pipelines are there. We really don't, We want them to know, we want them to be aware, but not know, right? Like, cause we like, we want to stay below the dirt. If they don't know that the pipelines are there, we're happy. Cause we haven't had any incidents. They're not going to interact with them, right? Like what we don't want to do is
Chris: You don't want them to not know. That's why we send out mailers. That's why we have pipeline markers. This is, there's a whole program to do exactly to work against what you said.
Rhett: We do, but we, we don't for the right reasons, right?
Chris: Because you want them to be educated is what you want. You don't want them to be naive, unaware.
Rhett: You want educated awareness. I think not just blind awareness. And that's fair. But that's really difficult to do.
Chris: It's incredibly difficult. And it's and you know what else it is, Rhett?
Rhett: Expensive.
Chris: It's very expensive. It's incredibly expensive.
Rhett: 100%. Yes. And so that brings us to the challenge. So this lesson, again, I just want to I want to say to all my third-party damaged people out there and, and thank you. I shall say this episode was the direct result of feedback from, uh, one or two of our listeners and I want to say thanks. Cause,
Chris: But it's not third party damage to me. But I would say it's-
Rhett: but there are damage prevention professionals.
Chris: Well, yeah. I mean, obviously, well, public awareness programs, right? I mean, it's part of IMPs. It's the whole point. I think what we're trying to say is it's like, it takes all of us.
Rhett: It does.
Chris: In every situation possible to actually make a difference. If you see something say something, I think that’s the message whether you’re integrity or you’re operations, or you’re boots-on-the-ground or you’re in corporation office, there is always opportunities.
Rhett: Because it matters. It really does. So again for me this lesson or this episode was a really good kind of it’s ones of those moments when you just stop and reflect and you realize man pipelines are real and they influence real people, they impact real people, and the consequences of not doing something that's pretty simple can be catastrophic.
Chris: And as integrity professionals, it's hard for us to help mitigate this other than taking it to the streets.
Rhett: It's true.
Chris: You can't do it from your desk. You've got to take to the streets, tell your homies, tell your family, friends, all that fun stuff.
Rhett: Yep. All right, so hey, to our audience, I wanna say thanks for hanging out with us. Again, lots of additional content for this episode and these four failures, there'll be links. Hopefully you take a look at it and thanks for listening. It's been great.
- Outro -
This episode of Pipeline Things was executively produced by Sarah Etier and written by myself, Rhett Dotson. You can find all of the information from these third -party incidents on the PHMSA website in the form of their failure reports. Thanks for joining us.
